Road to Maple Ridge rink renamed Jim Robson Way

In celebration of Ridge Meadows Minor Hockey Association’s 50th anniversary, a section of road leading to the ice rink in Maple Ridge where many youth practice and play will be renamed Jim Robson Way.

What is currently 105 Avenue is to officially be renamed after Robson at the end of January, when a host of events are scheduled and which Robson will attend to commemorate the anniversary.

A city staff report for Tuesday, Dec. 5 recommends that renaming the section of 105 Avenue to “Jim Robson Way” be approved.

The city proposed renaming the road and approached minor hockey about c0-ordinating efforts, said Derek Gullmes, RMMHA vice-president.

“He’s a legend in the sports world,” Gullmes said of Robson, a Maple Ridge secondary graduate.

“Having him be part of the celebration is great.”

Robson was born in 1935, in Prince Albert, Sask. His family moved to Maple Ridge when he was eight years old. He graduated from Maple Ridge secondary, as valedictorian, in 1952.

He was briefly a sports reporter for The Gazette.

At 17, Robson started covering senior men’s basketball for CJAV radio station in Port Alberni. In 1955, he started working for CHUB radio in Nanaimo, where he covered the Mann Cup lacrosse finals.

By 1956, Robson started covering the B.C. Lions, the Vancouver Mounties baseball team, then WHL’s Vancouver Canucks hockey team on CKWX.

When the Vancouver Canucks became an NHL expansion team in 1970, Robson moved to CKNW to announce the team’s games. He remained the voice of the Canucks for nearly three decades.

For the first seven years, he mostly worked alone. For road games, he broadcast the game without a colour commentator and provided the pre-game, intermission, and post-game shows.

In 1977–78, he was joined by former B.C. Lions player and broadcaster Tom Larscheid. He also worked alongside ex-Canuck Garry Monahan.

Robson also covered the Vancouver Canucks on television broadcasts on BCTV, CHEK-TV and VTV throughout his career.

Robson also worked for CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada, mostly covering games in western Canada. It was for HNIC that he broadcast the Canucks’ first NHL game, a 3–1 home loss to the Los Angeles Kings on October 9, 1970.

His covered the Stanley Cup Finals in 1975, 1980, 1982 (in which the Canucks faced the New York Islanders), and 1983.

Robson’s most memorable call came during the 1994 playoffs, in Game 6, when he said about then Canucks captain Trevor Linden, who had struggled to the bench after getting high-sticked and knocked down: “He will play. You know he’ll play. He’ll play on crutches. He will play. And he will play at Madison Square Garden … ”

Game 7 was his last radio broadcast. Robson stepped down as the radio announcer for the Canucks in 1994 and moved to television full-time.

Robson was also well known for taking time to say “a special hello to all the hospital patients and shut-ins, those of you who can’t make it out to the game,” during each broadcast.

Robson retired in April 1999 and now lives near False Creek in Vancover with his wife, Bea.

Robson was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1992, the B.C. Hockey Hall of Fame in 1998 and the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame in 2000.

In 2002, he was selected to the Canadian Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame.

The association also had a special logo and third jersey made up for the anniversary, and plans to honour alumni who have gone on the play professionally, from Cam Neely, Brendan Morrison and Andrew Ladd to Brad Hunt, Victor Bartley, Patrick Wiercoich and Brandon Yip.

The jersey, with gold trim, arrived this past week and RMMHA teams are now wearing them.

“So far the feedback has been incredibly positive,” Gullmes said of the special edition jersey.

Further celebrations are planned for Saturday, Jan. 27, all day and evening at Planet Ice, on Jim Robson Way.

Gullmes said teams from the association, and the Meadowridge Barracudas will play back-to-back games throughout the day at Planet Ice. The association is working with NHL alumni to be part of the event, which will be capped with a game featuring the local junior B team, the Ridge Meadows Flames, and the Langley Trappers, 7:30 p.m.

Robson is to drop the puck for a ceremonial faceoff to start that game.

“I think it’s going to be a pretty exciting day,” Gullmes said.

Further to the 50th anniversary celebrations, the association is raising money for the Jim Lindsay Memorial Fund, created last year and awarded to a graduating midget. Lindsay was a long-time coach and volunteer with the association, serving on the committee that developed the moniker ‘Rustlers,’ and helped develop the traditions of red leather sleeves on the midget A1 team jackets.

Teams in the association are currently selling raffle tickets to raise money for the fund. One prize, donated by Lindsay’s family, is a rail travel package.

Raffle tickets will be sold at the annual Rustlers Winter Round-up, Dec. 27 to 30 – featuring teams in initiation levels 2-4, as well as atom A and C – and at a new event Jan. 3-6, called the Jim Lindsay Midget Tournament.

From the Maple Ridge Museum: This poem was written by a young Jim Robson (May 14, 1950), who would grow into one of Canada’s top sports reporters and commentators. He has captured with amazing skill the atmosphere and spirit of the first league baseball game held a week prior in Pete Telosky’s new Haney Baseball Stadium.